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New research shows 340,000 homes needed each year
23/05/2018
Labelled as
Development

New research has been published by the National Housing Federation and Crisis, the
national charity for homeless people which demonstrates a need for
the country to build 340,000 homes per year including 90,000 social
rented homes.

The research, conducted by Heriot-Watt University, shows that
England's total housing need backlog has reached four million
homes

To both meet this backlog and provide for future demand, the
country needs to build 340,000 homes per year until 2031. This is
significantly higher than current estimates (including the
Government's target of 300,000 homes annually).

The research highlights that simply building a total of 340,000
homes each year will not meet this need - they will need to be the
right type of homes. 145,000 of these new homes must be affordable
homes, compared to previous estimates of the annual affordable
housing need of around 78,000.

The new research also goes further than previous studies,
breaking down exactly what type of affordable homes are needed:

90,000 should be for social rent

30,000 should be for intermediate affordable rent

25,000 should be for shared ownership

Commenting in response to the findings, ARCH Chief Executive
John Bibby said:

"Stock retained councils must be allowed to build many of the
social rented homes the country needs and if the Government are
serious in their claim that they want to provide a new generation
of council housing then the Government must re-instate the
principles of the Self-financing Settlement introduced with all
party support under the Localism Act 2011 and remove the borrowing
cap on council Housing Revenue Accounts to enable them to borrow
prudentially against their housing assets and future rental
income."

"Only then will councils be able to play their part, alongside
housing associations, in providing the 90,000 new social rented
homes that this report identifies as being needed each year."